Gamification of organising

This article by Lithium’s Chief Scientist, Michael Wu Ph.D, builds on the previous article and delves deeper into the concept of gamification; a process which mirrors how we behave naturally as we learn – based on affirmation and reward. It also demonstrates in an easy-to-understand and visual format how gamification can be used as a learning tool and how it can be used to gain an understanding of how people or groups of people behave and how they adapt to certain situations.

It clearly illustrates the spectrum of gamification; to the left of the spectrum are tasks which provide instant gratification i.e. you complete an action = you get points/ reward and the more you repeat the action, the more points/ rewards you receive. As users move through the spectrum, the game becomes more about relationships, as opposed to simple tasks with immediate gratification; this end of the spectrum requires users to communicate and work in tandem with other users through more complex social interactions to achieve a delayed goal. Ideas that we can apply in our day to day working life.

reads “X wants to make Y fun” with suspicion. Anytime a company thinks it can make some boring or undesirable task “fun” it is usually with gamification/extrinsic rewards. 30+ years of academic research shows the only way to make it “fun” is intrinsic rewards, which aren’t easy.